Heartbreak

I am overwhelmed with sadness to tell you that our sweet HyperDog died in an accident on Saturday morning. We've had our faithful little sentry for six years and our kids don't even remember life before her. We were crazy about her. She was an icon around our house, welcoming everybody who came near in an embarrassingly undisciplined way. We loved that about her. She heralded everybody who came within sight, and tried to gain rides in the vehicles of the oil man, the cable guy, the mail man, the UPS man, the drycleaner man, the flower delivery guy...well, you get the idea. She was the only dog I knew who was thrilled with the idea of getting a shot at the vet as it meant riding in the car to go see more people. She loved our house, she loved us, she loved the deer in the back yard, she loved the cat...even though the cat didn't love her back. She just loved.

She was the eternal little Swiffer Vac and dish pre-washer, believing that any and all crumbs were good to the last drop. Somehow the floor under our table never needed cleaning after dinnertime. She took her clean-up jobs very seriously and the size of her belly proved that fact. She even went a little overboard sometimes believing that the garbage can was within her jurisdiction. She firmly insisted that the purses and suitcases of any and all visitors were fair game though, and she was rewarded with many a package of gum snatched from an unwatchful owner.

We are heartbroken, we miss her, we've been crying. It has been heart wrenching to see my two wee ones mourn the loss of the first thing that they've been so close to. It has been a lesson in human emotion to see how they each deal with their grief. It's been giving me the opportunity to teach them about how God is with us especially when we are sad, that he has been getting us ready for this bad experience and that he'll make all of us able to love better after this is over. I sometimes wonder if God uses losing a pet to prepare us for the experience of losing a human loved one later on in our lives.

We have a little grave on the back hill that has already had lots of visits. We're going to be blue for a while. We're going to keep thinking we need to let the dog out or to feed her. We'll expect her to bark when somebody rings the doorbell. As I've told the kids, that's called "mourning." That's how we know we loved her.